Community and the Long Shadow of the Analytic: Rieffian Pessimism in Social Thought

This paper sets out to explore the thinking and the direct and often indirect influence of the social theorist Philip Rieff on later generations of social theorists, especially in regard to the key sociological concept of community. It is argued that the work of this culturally-conservative social theorist has had a powerful, if somewhat shadowy, influence on such key radical critics of modern societies such as Christopher Lasch and Richard Sennett, revealing the need to acknowledge the significant resources of a Rieffian cultural sociology for critical thought.